FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW 



OF THE 



IMPERIAL DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE FOR THE WEST INDIES. 



•HBW Y 



Vol. XVII. No. 410. 



BARBADOS, JANUARY 12, 1918 



Prick Id. 



CONTENTS. 



Pagb 



Agriculture, Application 

 of Science to 9 



Agriculture in Barbados 7 



Avocado Pear in Califor- 

 nia, The 



Botany and the Living 

 Plant 



Bougainvillaea Seedlings 



British Honduras, Devel- 

 opment of 



Cacao Trees, Spraying 

 Experiments on 



Copeland, Professor E. B. 



Corn Cakes, American .. 



Cotton: — 



British Cotton Growing 



Association .., 

 Sea Island Cotton Mar- 

 ket 



Foodstuffs in Malaya ... 



Gleanings ... 



Insect Notes: — 



The Production of Light 

 in Certain Animals 



Items of Local Interest ... 



Lime Cultivation, Exten- 

 sion of 



15 



9 

 11 



4 



8 



7 



6 



6 

 13 

 12 



10 

 6 



13 



Page. 



Mango, Cross-Pollination 



of The 



Market Reports 



Meal, Shortage of 



Ministry of Munitions 

 and Agricultural Ma- 

 chinery 



Notes and Comments ... 

 Plant Diseases: — 



The Dissemination of 



Parasitic Fungi ... 



School Gardens in Jamaica 



Sugar Industry: — 



Scientific Progress in 



the Sugar Industry ... 



Sugar-cane Experiments 



in Trinidad 



Sugar Industry in the 

 Smaller West Indian 

 Colonies, Outlook for 



Tomato Breeding in 



Vincent 



Vegetables, Drying 



a Large Scale ... 

 Zapupe Fibre Plant 



9 

 16 

 15 



8 

 8 



14 



5 



3 



St. 



Outlook for the Sugar Industry in the 

 Smaller West Indian Colonies. 



JHE high price of sugar, owing to war con- 

 Lditions, has not unnaturally led to a consid- 

 ^erable increase of the acreage put under 

 sugar-cane in the smaller British West Indies in the 

 last two years. There has also been a more cheerful 

 tone 'with regard to the future of the sugar-cane 

 industry in the utterances of those interested. In 

 view of this condition it may be well to consider the 

 position of these islands as sugar producers, and the 

 factors which will tend to the permanent stability of 

 the industry, or otherwise. 



In the first place, it is reasonable to hope that the 

 sugar-cane will be freed in the future from any handi- 

 cap in the shape of bounty-fed sugar produced from 

 beet. But, on the other hand, it is to be remembered 

 that the sugar-beet industry has attained vast pro- 

 portions, and is conducted on most highly organized 

 and scientific lines, so that, even apart from bounties, 

 it must remain a most powerful factor in fixing the 

 price of sugar throughout the world. Unless cane 

 sugar can be profitably put on the market at a cost 

 no greater than can be done with beet sugar, the 

 growers of sugar-cane and the manufacturers of cane 

 sugar will necessarily be in as difficult a position as 

 they were ten or twenty years ago. It is well to 

 remember that the world's beet-sugar crop of 1911-12, 

 according to Dr. Prinsen Geerligs (The World's Cane 

 Sugar Industry, p. 39) was estimated at 6,801,000 

 tons against 8, 648,010 tons of cane sugar. 



Another fact has to be steadily faced by those 

 interested in the sugar-cane industry of the smaller 

 West Indian islands. The total production of cane 

 sugar in all of them is absolutely a mere nothing as 

 compared with the total output of cane sugar in th« 

 world, or even relatively, as compared with the produc- 

 tion of any large sugar-making country. The total output 

 of cane sugar in all the West Indian islands, leaving out) 

 Cuba and Porto Rico, was in 1910 only 282,000 tons, to 

 which total the smaller British Colonies of Barbados, 

 the Windward Islands, and the Leeward Islands only 

 contributed 68,740 tons, which is much less than one 

 large factory in Porto Rico, the Guanica Central, made 

 this last crop, not to speak of the large factories in 

 Cuba. It is therefore certain that these smaller 

 islands must be able, if their sugar industry is to con- 

 tinue, to produce it at as low a price as it is produced 

 in these larger places, the conditions of production, aft 



